A Hsinchu City-based fashion designer has won the top prize at the iD International Emerging Designer Awards in New Zealand.
Liang Zong-lin (梁宗琳), who works out of the Maker Space of the Ministry of Labor’s Workforce Development Agency in Hsinchu, was awarded for her Urban Refugees (城市難民) clothing design series at the event, which ran from March 31 to April 1.
The win by 25-year-old Liang, who was one of 25 finalists in the contest, “shines a bright light on Taiwan,” the ministry said on Friday.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Labor’s Workforce Development Agency
The event’s organizers said that the award is aimed at evaluating the works of students in fashion design schools around the world, as well as those in the industry who graduated within the previous five years.
Liang, who said she has aspired to be an artist since she was a child, won the best design award at the ministry-organized Look Taiwan Fashion and Accessories Design Awards in 2020 while she was still at university.
In 2021, Liang attended an 84-hour advanced course on tailoring at Maker Space, where she learned from industry experts, she said.
After graduating last year, she focused on starting a business and entered her Urban Refugees product line in a contest at Maker Space, which she won, netting NT$50,000 in prize money.
“Maker Space has provided me with valuable learning opportunities and resources, which has helped me develop my own creations and diversify professionally,” she said. “It has also allowed me to establish good relationships with industry experts.”
Liang said that her design specialty is avant-garde menswear, in which she developed skills as a student through her first brand, Club Mad — which focused on customized clothing and T-shirt designs for fashionable people aged 25 to 35.
Her experimental designs have once again gained the affirmation of judges through her latest win in New Zealand, the ministry added.
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